Fading
by WilderKaiserin
Summary: Hishigi is dying. Fubuki isn't ready to let him go. HishigixFubuki.


My SDK muse is back, and I must write for my OTP.

**Summary: **Hishigi is dying. Fubuki isn't ready to let him go. HishigixFubuki.

**Disclaimer: **Wilder does not own SDK, to her immense sadness.

**Fading**

Hishigi stares blankly at the floor of his laboratory. Hitoki is dead. She faded fast this morning, far beyond anything Hishigi could do but dull the pain. Fubuki is nowhere to be found, and Muramasa is taking care of Tokito. Hishigi locked himself into the lab hours ago, poring endlessly over his papers, hands fisted in his hair, eyes squeezed shut. Maybe he cried, for all he knows.

And then Hishigi coughs, and black spots cloud his vision. When they clear, he sees red – his papers. He doesn't think at first, only tries, blankly, to salvage them.

He freezes at the smell, and the texture. That's blood. _His_ blood. He's ignored the headaches, the occasional cough, the bouts of dizziness – but this, this he can't cast away. He doesn't have Hitoki's case to lose himself in anymore. There are others, but he treats them distantly, the cold doctor they've come to expect.

Hishigi lurches to his feet, holding his head. His left eye hurts, and his leg feels stiff, like it's fallen asleep. He takes a shaky step and collapses on the floor against his desk, making a terrible crash and sending papers flying.

He hears footsteps outside the laboratory door – Fubuki or Muramasa, he's not sure, he's too disoriented to make the distinction that would once have come so easily to him.

Whoever it is bangs on the door urgently, desperately.

"Hishigi!"

_Fubuki_, Hishigi thinks, and he drifts off. He hasn't slept in three days – might as well catch up.

* * *

When Hishigi wakes, the first thing that registers is that he isn't alone. Fubuki must have wrenched the door off of its hinges to get inside. The second is that his mouth tastes like blood.

"Hishigi." The voice comes from beside him, low and more emotional than Hishigi is used to hearing.

It's an effort even to open his eyes, and the left one's vision remains fuzzy. But Hishigi manages to pull himself into a sitting position against his desk, breathing heavily. Fubuki doesn't help – he knows better than that – but when Hishigi's breathing steadies, Fubuki touches his shoulder.

"Muramasa has called a meeting with the King," Fubuki says quietly. "Are you up to it?"

"Yes," Hishigi says. He grips the edge of his desk as tightly as he can, and hauls himself to his feet.

* * *

It's over, then. The King doesn't care about the current, flawed race of Mibu.

Hishigi knows that he's going to die.

Fubuki doesn't.

Hishigi returns to his lab. Too tired to actually fix the door, he merely props it up against the damaged frame.

He doesn't know what to do. The disease is spreading like wildfire throughout the Mibu. Fubuki's resurrection is useless, and Hishigi's treatment is no better.

And the pain in his eye keeps getting worse, like someone's pounding a railroad spike into his skull. He knows it will go blind soon enough. This case is aggressive, far more so than most he's treated. They all end the same way, of course, but some go faster than others. Some manage to live their lives for another few years, and several have managed a decade or two.

Hishigi will not.

He can't think of anything that hasn't been tried before and failed. He's not sure he wants to live anymore. The Mibu are a flawed race – maybe they don't deserve to survive.

Footsteps again. Fubuki. Hishigi is lucid enough to tell this time.

Fubuki knocks on the askew door and waits. Hishigi doesn't move. He's nearly fallen asleep on his desk, and he doesn't have the energy to get up, even for Fubuki.

His friend is not a particularly patient man. Eventually, he lifts the door and moves it off to the side, striding into the lab and over to the exhausted younger Mibu. He shakes Hishigi's shoulder, and Hishigi manages to lift himself into a sitting position. Fubuki sits beside him in the only other chair.

"You are not yourself, Hishigi," Fubuki says.

Hishigi almost laughs.

"That's one way to put it."

"Muramasa and Shihodo are concerned."

Hishigi looks at Fubuki, hands clasped between his knees, almost too tired to reply.

"You're not here for them."

He regrets it immediately. Fubuki doesn't answer, and suddenly the room feels ten degrees cooler. What did he expect, anyway? Heartfelt declarations aren't either of their style, especially in a situation like this. Fubuki's wife is dead, his clan dying, his king unwilling to lift a finger to save them. Hishigi's gaze falls to the floor.

"You're right," Fubuki says, and Hishigi's eyes snap back upward. "I'm here for me. And for you. Tell me, Hishigi."

Hishigi takes a deep breath before attempting to answer.

"I have it. The disease. And it's spreading, fast. I'm going to die," he says dispassionately, as though it's someone else to whom he refers.

Fubuki doesn't speak. He's taking it in, Hishigi guesses, though he can't imagine why it's taking so long to understand. He watched Hitoki die, a little more every day, for years. And considering how he found Hishigi this morning, this shouldn't shock him.

"How long do you have?"

"At this rate? Less than a year."

Fubuki stands abruptly, knocking a few papers to the floor.

"You must have known before today. These symptoms don't come out of nowhere!" he almost yells. Hishigi looks back coldly, debating whether or not to play this card. He's too tired to really think it over.

"I was busy, Fubuki. Treating Hitoki, and the others. I didn't know for sure until this morning."

Fubuki took a step back at mention of Hitoki, as if he'd been struck. That was a low blow, Hishigi is aware. But right now, he doesn't want Fubuki's anger, or his comfort. He doesn't want to think about what they used to be. He just wants to sleep.

Fubuki doesn't give him that choice.

Because Fubuki is kissing him the way he hasn't in nearly a century.

**End Chapter**

Review please, and I'll try to get the next chapter up as soon as possible. I love writing for these two, even if they are incredibly depressing.


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